Category: Blog

It's funny.  When people ask me where I work these days I don't always remember that I do.

Partly because it's limited to 28 hours, and I work from home, I don't think it's a job.

One of the reasons I'm posting about it today, is that I'm finding it's a great place for students to come for extra.  Extra technology if it isn't offered at their school, but technology isn't the only subject.   They offer just about every subject your student would want.

They have a great summer program.  One of them is on a college campus — I'm not involved with it.  They also have an online program.

Here's why it's great for your kid.  There are instructors for each course who are assigned a small group of students.  We contact the parents on a regular basis.  The computer spits out a progress report and we send it out.  We also get a no-contact email, so I immediately contact the parent and let them know that the student hasn't done work.

I almost always get assignments right away – Johns  Hopkins CTY isn't cheap.

The great part is that we offer an AP program both summer and throughout the school year, so your student can take and pass an AP course.

Check it out.  http://cty.jhu.edu/

Best yet — I'm getting to write courses with them.

Since the latest password scare on EBay, I’ve decided to start a specialty service to help people manage their passwords.

For an fee, one hour minimum, I’ll come to you, or meet you at a local Starbucks, and show you how to manage your passwords.

It’s a bit time consuming to start, but I can make it very easy for you to do and maintain.

My solution works on all platforms, but especially PCs.  The most venerable.

Contact me at kathleen at kweaver.org and we’ll get together.  I do take credit cards even (through PayPal).  Something I can also show you how to set up.

(Dallas area)

I have been blogging since February 2003.  I started with Movable Type, and self hosted.  That was hard, because every time there was an update, especially a security one, I had to stop what I was doing and update the software. 

I went to @typepad when the Movable Type people came up with the service, and I pay pretty good money to keep my blogs there.  I didn’t have to run updates, they had cool design tools, and it was easy.  I’ve even urged other people to use it. 

However, while I can export my posts, there is no utility to easily get to my data. 

Now it is 2014 and there are cyber pirates hijacking sites.  They suffered a DOS attack a few weeks, and I’m mad as I should have been backing up my data.  I have all my other data backed up.

I also should be self-hosting right now, as I am job hunting, hosting full websites for others, and need to show off my capabilities.

So now instead of working on the new project, I’m having to deal with this.

I’ve got an Iomega ix4-200d cloud server, but it doesn’t to the cloud with my router “pout”.

Great little device, Lenovo bought them, and they have been using both the software and the hardware to come up with their own little devices.  I got one of their smaller units from Donor’s Choose for my students.  Used it to back up their software.

Anyway, it had a disk file, and I replaced it with a 3 TB, because it was cheaper.  Then I got the smart idea to replace all the 1T with 3T.  I figure if the hardware dies, I’ll just buy a diskless one and go on.

Well, I forgot it was set up with RAID 5 – or at least I didn’t take that into consideration. 

I’ve had to pull off the data off, reformat, and rebuild everything.  Fortunately it has a script for that – called Factory Reset.

I do keep all that data backed up so pulling the data wasn’t hard.

Working quite well now: With RAID 5, I have 9 T of data.

This is the one I have and note  it is the 4 TB, they are used.

This is the one that is in my classroom:

I would buy anything from the whole line: iomega storcenter

After teaching for 22 years, the stress with dealing with urban teenagers got to be too much, and I am moving on. Not adverse in dealing with a smaller group of teenagers and especially teaching only computer science. In fact, ran into a guy who wants me to teach at a local community college. Not sure they can provide a full time job.

There are several jobs at Microsoft that would be a perfect fit, one of those is based in the suburb next to the one I live in. I would love to work at Microsoft, and wouldn’t mind being based in another city.

There are also a copy of jobs at Nordstrom that would be a perfect fit, and again, I would be willing to have my work site based in another city.

Really would like to based in Dallas and travel. We live in the almost perfect house, in almost the perfect neighborhood.

I am playing with Azure, and so far, the hardest part is wrapping my head around the fact it is practically free for BizSpark members.

I got talked in a BizSpark account 2 1/2 years ago.  I have used it for Windows Phone App development and as a teaching tool.

The pay as you go plan is great, but you have to remember to turn your machines off.  Sort of like home?

http://www.drecathletes.com is up and running there.  Freely admit it took three tries, but I there!

So if you want someone who can do Azure, I am your girl.

Windows Phone 8.1 with an XBox music account.

It’s pretty cool.  It took a while, and doesn’t always work well in my noisy truck, but once you have going into XBox Music and let it index your collection and once Cortana gets to know your voice, it’s pretty awesome.

Push the search icon on the phone, say “Play Margaritaville” and Jimmy Buffet comes on and sings his song. 

Works better with artists:  “Play Paul Simon” and a random Paul Simon comes up.

(By the way, my cousin suggested I should help with that.)

I’ve got a better deal but this is new and just out. 

Buy Office 365 Personal for $6.99. Get a 1-month subscription including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneDrive cloud storage, and Skype PC-to phone world calling for 1 PC or Mac, plus 1 iPad or Windows Tablet. Buy and Download today!

Disclaimer:  I am shilling for Microsoft as always!  Updated.

After toting around a Surface RT for almost a year, replacing it with a Surface 2 RT, and toting it around for about 4 months, I’m really happy with all of those decisions.  Even happier now with my Pro.  I’ve had it for about a month now?

This is the one I have.  I don’t see paying $400 more for the Surface 2 features.

Here is the case I keep it in.  Love it, room for pen, mouse and hotspot.

Typical day for me is to go to the gym for almost 1 1/2 hours.  Surface Pro works great on the exercise bike – ideal workout for me and my bad knees is to take a long slow ride.

I can keep up with Facebook, Twitter and email.  I’ve even been known to do small updates on web pages. 

It’s a great distraction for the long slow rides.  This morning I went through the rest of my Windows Phone Apps and checked to make sure the pricing was right, and even read the new documentation on the ads.  My next step is to make a free version of each of my apps that are ad supported.

It doesn’t add too much weight or bulk – I carry a large zippered tote since I need emergency diabetes and dog supplies.

The other night I left the keyboard behind but was still able to update a client’s website and show her some software.  Now the Wedge keyboard is in the bag.  I like it better than the touch cover.

I also bought a new accessory – a Bidul hub. 

It works very well, though it does cover the volume rocker on the pros.  This one is fine for the first generation, but they have upgraded for the 2’s.  I didn’t like the first one for the Surface 2s, but since this one is out now, get it.

I haven’t figured out why you need a micro USB port on it so I am open to suggestions.

Yes, I am shilling for Amazon, but I need some extra revenue to pay for the technology habit.

I run Teacup Agility – my first Windows Phone app is very specific to it, but I suspect there are some other applications.

It’s called Dog Agility Point Tracker and I wrote it to solve a very specific problem.  There are a group of agility games that require you to get a specific number of points, and different obstacles are worth different points.

Example:  You have to get a total of 30 points, weaves are worth 5, jumps are worth 1, and contact obstacles are worth 3.  You can only do each obstacle once. 

Yeah, made my head spin and I couldn’t find a good way to keep up with it.  So I created an app.  It’s great, because you just touch the right point value and the app keeps track of it.  Hit the reset button and start over again.

I know, I think there is a market of about 3 people in it but it solves a problem for me – anyone know of a different market?